Fox Networks Group named Joe Marchese president of advertising revenue.
Marchese joined Fox when his advanced advertising company, true[X], was acquired by 21st Century Fox in 2015. He was most recently president of advanced advertising products at Fox Networks Group and was very involved as Fox with Viacom and Turner founded Open AP, the consortium aiming to standardize audience buying.
Marchese succeeds Toby Byrne, who left Fox last year, and will report to Fox Networks Group president and COO Randy Freer. He takes over days before Fox's upfront presentation on Monday.
Fox has been among the companies vocal about the need for TV to innovate its advertising business, particularly as traditional ratings drop and competition from digital media intensifies.
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"Joe is an industry leader who has accelerated the transformation of our sales organization into a modern creative group with exceptional capabilities in the areas of data, digital revenue, user experience and branded content creation," said Freer. "I look forward to working with Joe to build on the industry-first user experiences and innovative storytelling opportunities we are developing for our brand partners."
true[X] built ad experiences based on consumer engagement by giving viewers of digital video a choice of accepting a longer message from one advertiser and having no more interruptions for the remainder of the program or watching a more typical load of commercials.
"I couldn't be more excited to take on this new role at Fox Networks Group, which is home to the greatest entertainment and sports programming in the world," said Marchese. "It's crucial, as an industry, that we evolve the business model of advertising to better serve our brand and agency partners, our creative community and, most of all, our viewers and fans. It is rare that we have an opportunity, through working together, to benefit all players in an ecosystem, but that is exactly what we have in front of us with the digitization of delivery of TV quality content."
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Freer also thanked the executives who have been running Fox's ad sales team since Byrne's departure, including executive VPs Danielle Maged and Bruce Lefkowitz. Under Lefkowitz, Fox cashed in on a seven game World Series that crowned the Chicago Cubs for the first time in 108 years and the first Super Bowl to go into overtime after a record-setting comeback by the New England Patriots.
